Tom Campbell

Medea Benjamin, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, complained frequently during the campaign that her candidacy has not received the attention it deserved. She finally got noticed Monday night, but maybe not in the way she intended. After disrupting a Democratic campaign rally featuring incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Gray Davis, she was kicked out of the auditorium and handcuffed by San Francisco police.

Tom Campbell takes pride in being an outsider, even in his own party. "I've rocked every boat in the harbor," he has taken to saying at campaign stops up and down the state. The problem with his longshot effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is that his own boat has trailed so far behind the incumbent's that they often seem to be sailing in different oceans--and in different directions.

Six years after she narrowly won reelection in a race that drew national attention, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein faces Republican Rep. Tom Campbell in a little-watched contest that she has led from the outset. Far better known and far better financed than her San Jose opponent, California's senior senator has pushed her case for another term by stressing her legislative record, especially on gun control and the environment.

In contrast to their acrimonious showdown days earlier, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her Republican opponent, Rep. Tom Campbell, held a spirited but respectful, issues-oriented debate Friday focusing on immigration, criminal justice and the Middle East.

Only days before the election, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has an overwhelming lead over Republican Tom Campbell in a new Times poll that illustrates the challenge of mounting a viable campaign across California with little name recognition or campaign money. The survey, conducted Oct. 19 to 23, found Feinstein leading the San Jose congressman 60% to 35% overall and among every group polled except white men, historically a bedrock for the GOP.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tom Campbell had followed the national polls and watched Al Gore's slide as he became tainted as a fibber. Maybe character does count, Campbell told himself. Perhaps he could glom onto the dynamic of the presidential race by attacking Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's integrity. That, finally, might send her into a skid. After all, the Republican National Committee was now running a TV ad asking, "Why does Al Gore say one thing, when the truth is another?"

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and challenger Tom Campbell clashed repeatedly Tuesday over her votes on China trade and other foreign policy matters in a contentious face-off just two weeks before the election.

Before going public with his plan to run for the U.S. Senate, Republican Congressman Tom Campbell paid a courtesy call on Democrat Dianne Feinstein in her Washington, D.C., office. He was going to run against her, he said. But his campaign would be a contest of ideas, not a mud-wrestling match. "I said, 'I'm not going to [attack] either,' " Feinstein said last week. Thus, the stage was set for one of the most tepid Senate races in years.

For years, international financier Richard C. Blum's vast business portfolio has persisted as a nettlesome issue for his wife, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a vocal proponent of increased China trade. Three years ago, he vowed to turn over any profits from his China investments to charity. Last year, as Feinstein prepared to run for reelection, Blum says, he disposed of his remaining personal investment in mainland China to avoid any hint of impropriety.

Tom Campbell is a headstrong Republican congressman who stakes out iconoclastic positions seemingly not in his political self-interest. And in his bid for the U.S. Senate, he refuses political action committee money to promote an image of independence from special interests. But an examination of his campaign donations over the years shows how difficult it can be to completely disengage from what Campbell calls "the potentially corrupting system."